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How the breakup of Ryan Colt Levy's band led him to rethink his identity and find Chainsaw Man

The actor behind Chainsaw Man's Denji shares his voice acting origin story

Chainsaw man standing in rubble
Image credit: MAPPA studios

Chainsaw Man voice actor Ryan Colt Levy hasn’t always planned to be an actor. In fact, for a good chunk of his career to date, he was a musician in a band that would record and tour - but then the band decided to break up. Unfortunately, the very same week that his band decided to break up, Levy was also laid off from his day job. All of a sudden, things got really real. “I’m just some dude in this city where I don’t have family,” Levy told the audience at Emerald City Comic Con 2023.

At his band’s goodbye dinner, however, his friends asked him what he was going to do next, and he responded, “I think I’m supposed to be acting.” He went into it with background work, and through the help of someone he met on a job, put together a voice acting reel. Levy decided to email it out to companies, and began to get job offers within a matter of weeks.

Though Levy was a big fan of the Chainsaw Man manga, he had no expectation that he would ever get the chance to audition. He even showed up to a Chainsaw Man panel as a fan and saw the first trailer, which really impressed him. The day of the panel happened to be the day that he also got the audition, and the rest is history. “It’s still luck," he says about the whole process, "I’m still lucky to be here.”

Emerald City Comic Con: All the greatest coverage from Popverse at the first big convention of 2023!.

Tiffany Babb

Tiffany Babb: Tiffany Babb is a professional lurker (aka critic) who once served as Popverse’s deputy editor and resident Sondheim enthusiast.

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